Othello (Bedlam)
There might be some advantages to a stripped-down version of a William Shakespeare play with fewer characters for small theater companies on a tight budget but Eric Tucker’s Bedlam production of "Othello" hasn’t found it. Reduced to four actors playing all the roles, this effort reaches its limit when in the last scene after Susannah Hoffman’s Desdemona and Susannah Millonzi’s Emilia lie dead, they have to stand up and become Michael Cassio, formerly lieutenant and now general of the Venetian Army in Cyprus, and Lodovico, emissary from the Venetian court, respectively, as there are no other actors to play these parts. It is also unconvincing watching Ryan Quinn’s Othello dropping his blue button-down shirt to his shoulders as a shawl and playing Bianca, Cassio’s Cyprus girlfriend, when we have just seen him as the hero of Shakespeare’s tragedy. This production demonstrates that Shakespeare’s "Othello" might be played with six or eight actors, but not four. [more]
